Friday, December 09, 2005

There's a great column by Greg Couch in today's Chicago Sun-Timesabout Gary Barnett's being fired as head football coach at University of Colorado. What finally brought him down? Hint: it wasn't the allegations of rape and sexual assault from female staff memebers.

Barnett was fired Thursday at Colorado and still walked off with a $3 million contract settlement. We're going to hear about the rape allegations against Colorado football players and recruits and all the dirty stuff that popped up a few years ago at CU under Barnett. But you know what?

That had nothing to do with his firing. All those women, nine at last count, screaming for help. Barnett survived all of that. Two female trainers saying they were sexually assaulted by an assistant coach and coerced into having sex with recruits. Barnett survived that. A recruit saying he was promised sex. No stain on Barnett. He survived.

This is why he was fired: Nebraska 30, Colorado 3. Texas 70, Colorado 3. Those things happened in the last two weeks. A week earlier, CU was talking to Barnett about a contract extension. Nine screaming women meant nothing to CU. But a loss to Nebraska?

Goodbye, Gary.

Colorado is the most disgusting college athletic program in the country. I say that mostly out of humanity, but also, unfortunately, as a CU alum. When Colorado didn't fire Barnett before, it sent out the worst social message, our higher education system sanctioning the objectification of women, and worse. But to fire him after blowout losses so soon after letting him skate on the scandals?

I'm not sure how can we hope for more women to be unafraid to come forward about sexual assault when the only message being drilled into their heads with any consistency is NOBODY CARES.

"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false is guilty of falsehood, and the accidental truth of the assertion does not justify or excuse him."